iRlVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS |y 


RICHMOND  AND  WASHINGTON 


IN 


DECEMBER,  1863. 


o> 


By  E.  A.  POLLARD, 


m  Author  of  '/The  First  and  Seeond  Years  of  the  War,"  m 


uy 


Ptccata  Mcentium  nota  esse  oporiet  tt  expedite — JcttTlNlAM. 


RICHMOND: 
PUBLISHED  FOR  THE  AUTHOR. 

1864. 


George  Washington  Flowers 
Memorial  Collection 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 


ESTABLISHED  BY  THE 

FAMILY  OF 

COLONEL  FLOWERS 


<%  "§M  ^kmostraftm 


CONTENTS 


!.__«  Want  of  Capacity"  in  tiie  Confederate  Administra- 
tion. 

» 

II.— Jefferson    Davis— Early    Prognostications    of    the 
War. 

MI.— The  Confederate  Finances. 

I\r .—TnE  Military  Situation  in  the  Confederacy.— Dem- 

AGOGUEISM. 

V. — Lincoln's  "Peace"  Proclamation. 
VI.— The  Slavery  Question  in  the  War. 
VII— History  of  thr  "Retaliation"  Policy. 
VIII— The  Last  Hope, 


PEEFxlTORY. 


Owing  to  the  extreme  scarcity  of  paper  and  printing  facilities 
•  in  the  Confederacy,  the  author  of  "The  First  and  Second  Years 
of  the  War"  has  arranged  for  the  printing  of  his  Third  Volume 
in  England,  and  is  uncertain  of  the  time  of  its  appearance  in  the 
Soiith.  The  following  pages  constitute  a  single  chapter  of  the  un- 
published manuscript  of  this  volume.  These  pages,  thus  discon- 
nected, are  not  intended  to  advertise  a  forthcoming  work,  or  to 
.  be  violently  imposed  upon  the  public  attention ;  but  the  author 
has  supposed  that  they  contained  certain  grave  considerations, 
which  have  a  present  and  immediate  interest  for  the  Southern 
public,  apart  from  their  general  relations  to  the  history  of  the 


war. 


Richmond,  January,  1864. 


THE 

♦ 

RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS: 

RICHMOND  AND  WASHINGTON 

IN 

DECEMBER,    1863. # 

By    E.    A.    POLLARD, 

Author  of  .'-The  First  m\i  Second  Years  of  ibe  War/' 

'  Pefrata  ncrentiura  uctn  esse  vportet  *t  txptdit" — Jcsnxus, 


RICHMOND: 

PUBL1SHKI)  FOR  THE-  AFTHOR. 
%  18G4. 


THE    RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS. 


i.  : 

At  the*  meeting  of  'the  Confederate  Congress,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1863,  President  Davis  said:  "We  now  know  that  the  only 
"  reliable  hope  for  peace  is  in  the  vigour  of  our  resistance, 
"  while-  the  cessation  of  their"  [the  enemy's]  "  hostility  is  only 
"•to  be  expected  from  the  pressure  of  their  necessities."  The 
Confederate  Administration  had  at  last  arrived  at  the  correct 
comprehension  of  the  war.  But  it  had  reached  this  conclusion 
only  after  a  period  of  nearly  three  years  of  ignorance,  short- 
sighted conceit  and  preversity. 

The  careful  and  candid  reader  of  the  pages  of  two  volumes  of 
the  history  of  the  war,  by  this  writer,  will  bear  him  witness  that 
at  no  time  has  he  reflected  upon  the  patriotism  or  the  public 
integrity  of  President  Davis.  The  accusation,  which  has  run 
through  these  volumes,  is  simply  this :  want  of  capacity  in  the 
administration  of  public  affairs. 


ii. 


•  It  is  not  possible  that  any  historian  of  this  war  can  overlook 
certain  admirable  qualities  of  the  President  of  the  Confede- 
racy :  his  literary  abilities,  his  spruce  English,  •  his  ascetic 
morals,  the  purity  of  his  private  life,  and  ,the  extraordinary 
facility  of  his  manners.  But  he  was  not  a  statesman  ;  he  had 
no  administrative  capacities  ;-he  lacked  that  indispensable  and 
practical  element  of  success  in  all  political  administrations — 
knowledge  of  the  true  value  of  men ;  and  he  was — probably, 
unconsciously  through  his  vanity — accessible  to  favourites.  In 
the  old  government,  Mr.  Davis  had  never  been  accounted  as  a 
statesman,  but  was  quite  as  obtrusive  as  most  of  the  public  men 
of  that  day.  He  it  was,  of  Southern  politicians,  who  declared 
in  a  public  letter,  in  1858,  that  the  "Kansas  Conference  bill" 


2  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

was  "the  triumph  of  all  for  which  we  contended."*  He  had 
failed  to  see  the  origin  and  occasion  of  the  revolution  which  he 
assumed  to.  conduct. 

His  choice  of  favourites  in  the  field,  had  been  as  unapt  as  his 
selection  of  political  advisers  in  the  Cabinet.*  This  President 
who  depreciated  Price  as  a  militiaman,*  and  held  (or  probably 
affected)  a  light  opinion  of  Beauregard,  was  convinced  that 
Pemberton  was  a  genius  who  should  be  raised  by  a  single  stroke 
o£  patronage  from  the  obscurity  of  a  major  to  the  position  of 
a:  Lieutenant  General :\  recognized  Heth  as  a  young  Napoleon  ; 
selected  Lo veil  as  the  natural  guardian  of  the  Mississippi ;  de- 
clared that  Holmes,  who  had  let  the  enemy  slip  out  of  his  fingers 
at  Richmond,  was  the  appointed  deliverer  of  Missouri  and  Ar- 
kansas, and  competent  to  take  charge  of  the  destinies  of  an 
empire ;  and  prophesied  with  peculiar  emphasis  of  mystery,  but 

*  The  obstinate  adhesion  of  President  Davis  to  his  favourites  was  forcibly 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  Pemberton."  The  criticism  of  the  public  had  no 
charity  for 'this  commander,  and  his  recent  campaign  culminating  in  the  sur- 
render of  Vicksburg,  was  denounced  by  the  intelligent  as  a  series  of, blun- 
ders, and  by  others  less  just  and  more  passionate  as  the  device  of  treason. 
It  was  argued  that  he  had  exposed  Bowen  with  only  four  thousand  men  at 
Grand  Gulf — a  position  impregnable  to  the  enemy  if  it  had  been  defended  by 
sufficient  numbers.  It  Was  stated  that  on  the  more  unfortunate  day  of  the 
Big  Black  he  had  denied  the  importunate  entreaties  of  Bowen  for  reinforce- 
ments, who  dispatched  seven  or  eight  couriers  for  them  in  the  course  of  the 
unequal  battle.  It  was  stated  that  he  declined  to  provision  Vicksburg  in 
prospect  of  a  sie^e,  and  that  when  one  of  the  Confederate  Senators  from  Mis- 
sissippi pointed  out  to  him  vast  supplies  in  certain  counties  of  the  S»ate 
accessible  to  his  garrison,  he  dismissed  the  advice  with  a  haughtiness  that 
almost  amounted  to  personal  insult. 

As  proof  of^  the  abundance  of  the  country  around  Vicksburg,  we  have 
Grant's  official  report  of  his  Mississippi  campaign,  in  wnich  he  states  that 
with  a  view  of  rapid/movement  and  surprise,  having  calculated  that  twenty 
days  would  place  him  before  Vicksburg,  he  permitted  his  troops  to  take  only 
four  days'  provisions,  trusting  to  the  country  for  the  other  sixteen  days'  sup- 
ply, and,  in  fact,  supplied  his  army  {50,000  men)  from  the  country  lying  about, 
the  line  of  his  march.  *  .       - 

The  statement  that  the  garrison  of  Vicksburg  was  surrendered  on  account 
§f  an  inexorable  distress,  in  which  the  soldiers  had  to  feed  on  mules,  with 
the  occasional  luxury  of  rats,  is  either  to  be  taken  as  a  designing  falsehood, 
or  as  the  crudities  of  that  foolish  newspaper  romance  so  common  in  the  war. 
In  neither  case  does,  it  merit  reputation.  A  citizen  of  Vicksburg  declares  that 
the  only  foundation  for  the  rat  story  is  that  a  pie  spiced  with  this  Vermin  was 
seived  up  in  some  of  the  officers'  messes  as  a  practical  joke,  and  that  for  days 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS,         '  8 

a  few  weeks  before  the  session  of  Congress,  in  a  public  speech 
in  a  Southern  city,  .that  Bragg  by'  that  time  would  be  in  the 
heart  of  Tennessee,  and  on  the  pinnacles  of  victory  ! 

The  civil  administration  of  Mr.  Davis  had  fallen  to  a  low  ebb. 
There  are  certain  minds  which  cannot  aee  h'ow  want  of  capacity 
in  our  government,  official  shiftlessness  and  the  mismanagement 
of  public  affairs  yet  consist  with  the  undeniable  facts  of  the 
successes  of  our  arms,  and  the  great  achievement's  of  the  Con- 
federacy. But  it  is  possible  that  thesfc  two  conditions  may 
eonsist^-that,  in  a  revolution,  the  valour  and  determination  of 
a  people  may  make#  considerable  amends  for  the  faults  of  it* 
governors.  If  the  history  of  this  war  has  proved  one  proposi- 
tion clearly  it  is  this  :  that  in  all  its  subjects  of  congratulation , 
the  "statesmanship"  of  Richmond  has  little  part  or  lot.  Let 
those  who  deny  the  justice  of  this"  historical  judgment,  which 
refuses  to  attribute  to  the  official  authorities  of  this  government 
such  success  as  we  have  had  in  this  war  say,  what  they  have  con- 
tributed to  it. 


after  tfie  surrender  he  himself  tiad  dined  on  excellent  bacon  from  Pember- 
ton's  stores. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  real  merits  of  the  many'accusations  of  which 
Pemberton  was  the  subject,  these  at  least  indicated  that  he  did  not  command 
the  confidence  of  his  troops  or  of  any  considerable  portion  of  the  public;  and 
this  deficiency  alone  sheuh.4  have  suggested  to  the  President  the  prudence  ot 
x  change  of  commanders  and  dissuaded  him  from  his  obstinate  preference  of 
a  favourite.*  But  it  had  none  of  this  effect.  The  Legislature  of  Mississippi 
solicited  the  removal  of  Pemberton.  Private-  delegations  from  Congress  en- 
treated the  President  to  forego  his  personal  prejudices  and  defer  to  the  public 
wish.  But  Mr.  Davis  had  that  conceit  of  opinion  which  opposition  readily 
confirms;  and  the  effect" of  these  remonstrances  was  only  to  increase  his  ob- 
stinacy and  intensify  his  fondness  for  his  favourite.  To  some  of  them  he  re-' 
p4ied  that  Pemberton  was  "n  great  military  genius" — not  appreciated  by  the 
public,  and  destined  on  propor  occasion  to  astonish  it.  Indeed,  the  President 
went  further  than  mere  opposition  to  the  public  sentiment.  He  defied  and 
almost  insulted  it;  for  after  the  disaster  of  Vicksburg,  Pemberton,  with  tfce 
public  reproaches  clinging  to  him,  and  public  sentiment  clamoring  in  vain  for 
an  inquiry  into  his  conduct,  was  ostentatiously  entertained  as  the  President'.-, 
guest  in  Richmond,  and  giver,  the  distinction  of  one  of  his  suite  in  the  subse- 
^nent  official  visit  of  the  President  to  our  armies  in  the  West!  It  was  said 
by  Mr.  Fo<*e,  in  public  session  of  Congress,  that  when  the  President,  with  jl 
peculiar  hardihood,  essayed  to  ride  down  the  lines  of  our  troops,  with  Pem- 
"berton  at  bis  side,  angry  exclamations  assailed  them,  and  passed  from  lip  :.. 
lip  6€  the  soldiers.  p 


4  THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

The  evidences  of  the  "statesmanship"  of  Richmond,  were 
not  to  be  found  in  our  foreign  relations :  these  were  absurdities, 
They  were  not  tp  be  found  in  our  provisions  for  the  war :  these 
were  make-shifts  from  month  to  month.  They  were  not  to  be 
found  in  our  financial  calculations :  these  had  proved  tfce  most 
ridiculous  failures  in  the-  monetary  annals  of  the  world.  '  We 
owe  this  melancholy  confession  to  history,  that  we  do  not  know 
of  any  real  and  substantial  particulars  in  which  the  administra- 
tion of  Mr.  Davis  has  contributed  to  this  war.  The  reverse  of 
the  proposition  need  not  be  repeated  here. 

It  is  mortifying,  indeed,  to  look  back  up*on  the  currents  of 
our  history,  to  observe  the  blindness  and  littleness  of  mind,  the 
conceit,  the  preversity,  the  short-sighted  management,  on  all 
which  we  have  drifted  into  this  present  vastness  of  war  and 
depths  of  distress.  In  Montgomery  at  the  period  of  the  pro- 
visional inauguration  of  the  Confederacy,  any  one  who  had  the 
Hardihood  to  insist  upon  the  probability  of  a  war,  became  a  butt- 
of  raillery  or  Jhe  object  of  suspicion.  The  war  once  begun,  the 
next  idea  in  the  minds  of  the  Confederate  leaders  was,  that  it 
was  to  be  dispatched  in  a  few  months  by  mere  make-shifts  «of 
armies  and  money,  and  with  the  scant  supply  of  munitions  al- 
ready on  hand.  Months  intervened  between  Lincoln's  declara- 
tion of  war  and  the  actual  establishment  of  the  blockade.  But 
no  use  was  made  of  this  golden  opportunity,  and  our  importa- 
tions of  army  supplies  from  Europe  during  all  these  months,  ac- 
tually may  be  counted  in  a  few  thousand  stand  of  small  arms, 
Secretary  Mallory  laughed  off  contractors  in  New  Orleans,  who 
offered  to  sell  to  the  government  a"  large  amount  of  navy  sup- 
plies. Judah  P.  Benjamin,  at  the  head  of  the  War  Department, 
*  wrote  to  a  friend  in  the  firsi  winter  of  the  war,-  that  within  sixty* 
days  the  country  would  be  at  peace.  Later  still,  in  the  winter 
of  1862,  President  Davis,  in  a  speech  before  the  Legislature  of 
Mississippi,  had  pronounced  the  solemn  opinion  that  <he  war 
would  soon  come  to  an  end.  Yet  we  find  the  same  eminent  per- 
sonage now  declaring  to  the  Congress  of  1863,  his  belief  in  an 
indefinite  prolongation  of  the,  war,  and  his  despair  of«his  many 
brilliant  former  prospects  of  peace,  through  instrumentalities, 
other  than  that  of  our  arms. 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  5 

Able  and  candid  journals  of  the  North,  have  repeatedly  con- 
fessed that  they  were  puzzled  by  the  extraordinary  want  of  fore- 
sight and  judgment  displayed  by  the  Confederate  leaders,  in 
eheir  calculation  at  different  periods  of  the  war  of  the  course 
likely  to'  be  pursued  by  Europe  and  the  North.  These  errours 
might  have  been  expected  from  men^)f  little  education,  to  whom 
self-interest  in  its  lowest  sense  was  the  key  to  all  political  pro- 
blems, but  by  no  means  from  persons  who  had  studied  politics 
in  books.  "  The  notion,"  said  tl;e  New  York  Times,  "  that  the 
Zi  North,  being  a  commercial  community,  devoted  to  the  pursuit 
"of  gain,  was,  for  that  reason,  sure  not  to  fight,  was  rather  the 
19  conclusion  of  a  backwoodsman  than  of  a  student.  The  lesson 
"  of  history  is  that  commercial  communities  are  amongst  the 
"  most  pugnacious  and  ambitious  and  most  obstinate  of  bcllig- 
"  erents  :  witness  Carthage,  Venice,  Genoa,  Holland  and  Eng- 
land." 

*  The  utter  failure  of  the  calculations  of  the  Confederate  Ad- 
ministration, regarding  France  and  England,  had  exhibited  a 
hasty  and  passionate  reasoning,  of  which  Mr.  Davis  and  his  asso- 
ciates might  well  be  ashamed.  The  idea  is  ludicrous  now  that  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  American  revolution,  France  and 
England,  with  their  centuries  of  vast  and  varied  experience,  in 
peace  and  war,  would  fling  themselves  into  a  convulsion  which 
their  great  politicians  easily  saw  was  the  most  tremendous  one 
of 'modern  times.  'Yet  this  idea  was  entertained  by  President 
Davis  ;  and  as  proof  of  it,  the  Confederate  commissioners  were 
instructed  to  apply  to  Earl  jRussell  for  recognition  in  England 
after  the  first  battle  of  Manassas  ! 

Af  the  commencement  of  the  war,  cotton  was  pronounced 
"  King;"  and  the  absurd  and  puerile  idea  was  put  forward  by 
the  politicians  of  the  Davis  school,  that  the  great  and  illustrious 
power  ofvEngland  would  submit  to  the  ineffable  humiliation  of 
acknowledging  its  dependency  on  the  infant  Confederacy  of  the 
South,  and  the  subserviency  of  its  empire,  its  political  interests 
and  its  pride  to  a  single  article  of  trade  that  was  grown  in  Ame- 
rica !  And  what  indeed  is.  the  sum  of  advantages  which  the. 
Confederacy  drew  from  the  royal  resources  of  cotton  ?  It  is 
true  that  these  resources  could  not  compel  the  political  interests 


6  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

and  pride  of  England.  But,  properly  used,  they  might  have 
accomplished  much  for  the  interests  of  the  Confederacy.  In 
point  of  fact  they  accomplished  nothing.  For  one  year  after  * 
the  war  commenced,  the  blockade  was  so  slight  that  the  whole  • 
of  the  cotton  might  have  been  shipped  'to  Europe,  and  there 
sold  at  two  shillings  sterling  a  pound,  giving  the  government, 
purchasing  at  twenty  cents,  a  clear  profit  of  six  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars  !  We  may  even  suppose  one-fifth  of  this  cap- 
tured by  the  «nemy,  and  we  would  still  have  had  a  balance  in 
our  favour  which  would  have  enabled  us  to  have  drained  every 
bank  in  Europe  of  its  specie  !  Or  if  we  had  drawn  for.this  sum 
as  we  needed  it,  our  Treasury  notes  Would  have  been  equal  \o 
g6ld,  and  confidence  in  our  currency  would  have  been  unshaken 

and  universal. 

■         •»      « 

The  Confederacy  had  thus  the  element  at  ready -hand  for  the 
structure  of  one  of  the  most  successful  schemes  of  finance  in 
the  world.  But  the  government  was  too  grossly  ignorant  to  see 
it.  The  purchase  of  the  cotton  to  the  government  was  decried 
by  Mr.  Memminger,  .as  a  scheme  of  "  soup-house  legislation  ;" 
and  the  new  government  was  started  without  a  basis  of  credit '; 
without  a  system  of  revenue  *  on  the  monstrous  delusion  that 
money  might  be  manufactured  at  will  tfut  of  paper,  and  that  a 
naked  "  promise  to  pay,"  was  all  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the 
war  ! 

It  is  to  be  frankly  admitted  that  the  South  commenced,  .the 
war  with  financial  advantages  which  the  North  did 'not  have — 
that  is,  without  reference  to  commercial  incidents  of  the  block- 
ade, but  with  respect  to  the  sustention  of  jts  credit  at  home. 
The  South  had  the  cotton  and  the  tobacco.  It  had  the  unbound- 
ed  sympathies  of  its  people.  It  had  larger  taxable  values  per 
capita  than  any  other  country  in  the  world.  It  is 'not  possible 
that  with  these  advantages  it  could  have  wrecked  its  credit  with 
its  Qwn  people,  unless  through  a  g#at  want  of  capacity  in  the 
administration  of  the  government.  It  is  not  possible,  that  with 
these  advantages,  its  currency  should  have  declined  with  its  own 
people,  ten  times  faster  than  that  of  the  North  with  its  people, 
'  unless  through  a  gross  mismanagement  of  public  affairs.  These 
are  logical  conclusions  which  are  no^  to  be  disputed. 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 


III. 

At  the  organization  of  the  permanent  government  of  the  Con- 
federacy, in  February  1865,  President  Davis  had  made  the  moat 
extravagant  congratulations  to  the  country,  on  our  financial  con- 
dition in  comparison  with  that  of  the  North.  In  less  than  eigh- 
teen months  thereafter,  when  gold  was  quoted  in  New  York  at 
twenty-five  per  centprenfium,  it  was  selling  in  Richmond  at  nine 
hundred  per  cent  premium ;  and  by  the  time  that#  the  Confede- 
rate Congress  met,  in  December  1863,  gfld  in  Richmond  was 
wt)rth  about  two  thousand  per  cent  premium,  and  was  publicly 
sold;  one  for  twenty  in.Confederate  notes  !  Such  had  been  the 
results  of  the  financial  wisdom  of  the  Confederacy.  It  had 
been  dictated  by  the  President,  who  advised  Congress  (as  late  as 
August  1862)  -to  authorize  illimitable  issues  of  Treasury  notes, ' 
without  fear  of  their  depreciation,  and  aggravated,  no  doubt,  by 
the  ignorance  of  his  Secretary,  who  invented  the  legerdemain 
of  "  funding,"  that  had  given  the  last  stab  to  the  currency,  aad 
who  opened  the,  doors  of  the  treasury  to  brokers,  blockade-run- 
ners and  the  vast  tribes  of  those  who  lived  on  the  depreciation 
of  the  public  credit-*  •• 


*  The  experiments  of  Mr.  JMemminger  on  the  currency  was  the  signal  of 
multiplied  and  rapid  depreciation.  While  the  eccentric  and  pious  Secretary 
was  figuring  out  impossible  schemes  of  making  money,  or  jansacking  the 
book-stores  for  works  on  Religious  controversy,  unprincipled  brokers  in  the 
Confederacy  were  undermining  the  currency  with  a  zeal  for  the  instruction 
of  their  country  not  less  than  that  of  the  Yankees.  The  assertion  admits  of 
some  qualification.  Sweeping  remarks  in  history  are  generally  unjust. 
Among  those  engaged  in  the  business  of  banking  and  exchange  in  the  South, 
there  were  undoubtedly  some  enlightened  and  public-spirited  men  who  had 
Keen  seduced  by  the  example  or'  constrained  by  the  competition  of  meaner 
and  more  avaricious  men  of  the  same  profession,  to  array  themselves  against 
the  currency,  and  to  commit  offences  from  which'they  would  have  shrunk  in 
horrour,  had  they  not  been  disguised  by  the  casuistry  of  commerce  and  gair?. 

It  was  generally  thought  in  the  South  reprehensible  to  refuse  the  national 
currency  in  the  payment  of  debts.  Yet  the  broker,  who  demanded  eighteen 
of  twenty  dollars  in  this  currency  for  one"  in  gold,  really  was  guilty  of  so 
many  times  refusing  the  Confederate  money.  It  was  accounted  shocking  for. 
citizens  in  the  Sryith  to  speculate  in  soldiers1  clothing  and  bread.  Yet  tlie 
broker,  who  demanded  twenty  prices  for  gold,  the  representative  of  all  values,' 


i  2H8  KIVAL  ^ADMINISTRATIONS. 

Of  all  the  features  of  maladministration  in  the  Confederacy  > 
which  we  have  unwillingly  traced,  that  of  the  currency  was, 
*  certainly,  the  most  marked,  and,  perh«,]ps,  the  most  vital.  No- 
thing could  be  more  absurd  than  the  faith  of  Mr.  Davis  and  Mr. 
Metnminger  in  the  virtues  of  paper  money,  and  no  empiricism 
more  ignorant  and  destructive  than  that  wbich  made  the  mere 
emission  of  paper  issues  a  system  of  revenue.  L  the  old  gov- 
ernment, we  had  had  many  emphatic  lessons  ob  the   subject  of 


speculated  alike  in  ever^  *«eee3*ary  in  xh.9  country.  £fow  wns  this  the  great- 
-est  of  their  offences.  Wjrh  r.UfUrtrpN  •  d  aau  1  •  •  fe$s  brokers  in  the  Con- 
federacy exposed  the  currency  &t  *he  North  fee  sale  and  demanded  for  it  ten 
hundred  per  cent,  premium  over  that  of  'he  Confederacy!  This  £.ct  of  be»e* 
fit  to  the  Yankees  was  openly  allowed  by  truj  government.  A  bill  had  been 
introduced  in  Congress  Jo  piofcbit  this  traiEe  and  to  extirpate  Shis  infamous 
anomaly  in  our  history;  but  k  failed  of  enactment,  and  its.failusre  can  only  bs 
attributed  to  the  grossest  stup:dity,  or  to  sinister  influences  of  the  most  dis- 
honourable kind;  The  traffic  was  immensely  profitable.  State  bonds  nr.J. 
bank  bills  to  the  amount  of  i^any  millions  were  sent  North  by  the  brokers,  anj 
the  rates  of  discount  were  readily  submitted  to  when  the  returns  were  madi 
in  Yankee  paper  money,  which,  in  the  Richmond  shops,  was  worth  in  Con- 
federate notes  ten  dollars  for  one. 

.One— but  only  one — cause  of  the  depreciation  of  the  Confederate  currency  > 
was  illicit  trade,  ffhad  done  more  to  demoralize  the  Confederacy  than  any- 
thing else.  The  inception  of  this  trade  was  easily  winked  at.  by  the  Confed 
erate  authorities-  it  commenced  with  paltry  importations  across  the  Potomac,,: 
it  was  said  the  country  wanted  medicines,  swrgical  instruments  and  a  number, 
of  trifles,  and  that  trade  with  the  Yankees  in  these  could  result  in  no  serious 
harm.  But  by  the  enlarged  license  ©f  the  government  it  soon  became'  an  in- 
famy and  a  curse  to  the  Confederacy.  What  was*  a  petty  traiSc  in* its  com- 
mencement soon  expanded  into  a  shameless  trade,  which  corrupted  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  country,  constituted  an  anomaly  in  the  history  of  belligerents, 
and  reflected  lasting  disgrace  upon  the  honesty  and  good  sense  of  oar.  gov- 
ernment. .The  country  had  taken  a  solemn  resolution  to  burn  the  cotton  in 
advance  of  the  enemy;  but  the  conflagration  of  this  staple  soon  came  to  be  a 
rare  event;  instead  of  being  committed  tq  the  flames  it  was- spirited  to  Yan- 
kee markets.  Nor  were  these  operations  always  disguised.  Some  commer- 
cial houses  in  the   Confederacy  counted  their  gains  by  millions  of  dollars 

ts;nce  the  war,  through  the  favour  of  the  government  in  allowing  ihena  to 
port  cotton  at  pleasure.  The  beneficiaries  of  this  trade  contributed  freely 
to  public  charities  and  did  certain  favours  to  the  government;  but  their  gifts* 
were  but  the  parings  of  immense  gains;  and  often  those  who  were  named 
by  weak  and  credulous  people  or  by  interested  flatterers  as  public-spirted  citi- 
s  and  patriotic  donors,  were,  in  fact,  the  most  unmitigated  extortioners- 
and  the  vilest  leeches  on  the  body  politic. — "  The  Second*Tear  of  the  War" — 

'  'pp.  304-5.  ' 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  9 

•r  money.  Indeed  it  is  a  curious  and  interesting  fact,  that 
m  sixty  years  of  our  past  history,  the  banking  institutions  of 
America  had  been,  more  or  less,  in  a  state  of  suspension  for  one 
third  of  the  time. 

But  despite  the  protest  of  historical  facts,  against  all  systems 
of  paper  expansion,  Mr.  Memminger  had  succeeded  by  the  time 
of  the  meeting  of  Congress,  in  putting  afloat  some  .seven  hun- 
dred millions  of  currency ;  although  at  another  time,  he  himself 
had  declared  that  the  business  of  the  country  could  not  conve- 
niently absorb  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions.*  And 
even  that  estimate  of  absorption  was  ridiculously  excessive.  It 
was  so  for  this  particular  reason :  that  in  the  state  of  war,  with 
k.s  commerce  cut  off  by  the  blocade*  with  no  merchant  ships, 
with  few  manufactures,  with  few  enterprises  open  to  capital,  the 
fcouth  afforded  but  little  scope  for  the  profitable  employment  of 
it3  currency.  The  difficulty  was  that  of  stagnant  capital  a3 
well, as  that  of  an  expanded  currency. 

At  least  one  reason  for  the  .comparative  financial  prosperity 
of  the  North,  during  the  war*,  was  its  capacity  of  absorbing 
large  amounts  of  currency  in  the  various  Amotions  of  its  active 
commercial  life  :  in  its  trade  open  with  all  the  world  ;  in  its 
shipping  whitening  every  sea 0 in  its  immense  internal  trade, 
borne  over  immense  lines  of  railroad  and  navigable  waters  ;  iri 
its  manufactures,  enjoying  the  monopoly  given  them  by  a  tariff*, 
which  shut  out  foreign  competition ;  in  its  stocks  which  made 
fortunes  by  the  miHion  in  Wall  street,  f 

But  the  agricultural  South  was  inundated  .with  a  currency 
fcr  which  there  was  no  outlet  except  in  that  pernicious  and  un- 
productive speculation  whose  sphere  of  trade  is  within  itself, 


*  Before  the  war  the  paper  money  of  the  whole  country,  North  and  South, 
was  two  hundred  and  twelve  millions;  the  gold  and  silver,  say  one  hundred 

•and  fifty  millions — total  circulation,  three  hundred  and  sixty-two  millions, 
f  The  hey-day  of  "Wall  Street"  is  thus  described  in  a  New  York  paper, 

*(A.ugust,  1863)-.  "  Stocks  have  advanced  on  an  average  fully  three  hundred 
percent.  For  example,  jhe  Erie  formerly  sold  for  five;  it  is  now  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty.  The  Galena«and  other  roads  of  the  same  kind,  whiqh- were 
down  to  thirty  and  forty,  are  now  up  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  and  one  hun- 
dred and  forty.  The  Harlem  *railroad,  that  nobody  would  take  at  six,  has 
risen  to  one  hundred  and  seventy.     Formerly  the  average  receipts  of  the  Erie 


10  THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

and  whose  operations  can  be  only  those  of  engrossing  and  ex- 
tortion. The  evils  of  the  expanded  currency  of  the  Confedera- 
cy, were  not  only  financial ;  they  were  also  moral.  The  super- 
abundance of*  paper  money  was  the  occasion  of  a  wild  specula- 
tion, which  corrupted  the  patriotism  of  the  country  ;  introduced 
extravagance  and  licentiousness  into  private  life ;  bestowed  for- 
tune upon.the  most  undeserving  ;  and,  above  all,  brec^  the  most 
grave  and  dangerous  discontents  in  the  army.  As  long  as  there 
was  a  spirit  of  mutual  sacrifice  and  mutual  accommodation  in 
the  war  our  soldiers  were  content  and  cheerful.  But  when  they 
had  to  compare  their  condition — the  hardships  of  the  camp ;  the 
pittance  of  eleven  dollars  a  month,  that  could  scarcely  buy  a  pair 
of  socks ;  the  poverty  of  ftie  dear  home  left  behind  them — with 
the  easy  and  riotous  wealth  of  those* who  had  kept  out  of  the 
army  merely  to  wring  money  out  of  the  necessity  and  distress 
of  the  country  $  who,  in  snug  shops  in  Richmond,  made  thous- 
ands of  dollars  a  day,  or,  by  a  single  stroke  of  speculation,  be- 
came rich  for  life ;  it'is  not  to  be  wondered  that  bitter  conclu- 
sions should  have  been  drawn  from  the  contrast,  and  that  the 
soldier  should  have*  given  his  bosom  to  the  bullets,  with  less 
alacrity  and  zeal,  when  he  reflected  that  his  martyrdom  was  to 
protect  a  large  class  of  men  grfcvn  rich  on  his  necessities,  aad 
*  that  too  with  the  compliance  and  countenance  of  the  govern- 
ment he  defended ! 


IV. 

At  the  period  of  the  assembling  of  Congress,  the  military 


yailroad  were  live  millions;  now  they  are  eleven  millions.  The  receipts  pf 
the  New  York  Central  formerly  averaged  seven  millions;  now  they  average 
eleven  ami  a  half  millions.  Formerly  the  Hudson^ River  nev^r  could  pay  its 
debts  ^  this  year  it  is  making  thirty  per  cent..  The  Fort  Wayne  road  formerly 
received  two  and  a  half  millions  annually ;  its  receipts  this  year  are  five  mil- 
lions. The  Central  Illinois  increased  its  receipts  last  week,  by  fifty  thausaii^ 
dollars,  and  it  will  earn  this  month  four  hundred  thousand  dollars." 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  11 

situation  in  the  Confederacy,  which  in  the  early  part  of  I860 
had  encouraged,  not  without  apparent  reasons,  hopes  of  an  early 
and  honourable  peace,  had  become  overshadowed,  critical,  and, 
to  some  extent,  truly  alarming.  At  the  time  of  J;he  fall  of 
Vicksburg,  the  enemy  had  also  obtained  an  important  and  per- 
manent success  in  Arkansas.  The  greater  portion  of  the  South- 
west he  had  now  overrun.  Missouri,  Kentucky  and  North- 
western Virginia,  were  exclusively  occupied  by  the  forces  of  the 
enemy.  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina  and  Alabama,  were 
partially  invaded  by  him.  He  had  passed  the  barrier  of  the 
Cumberland  mountains,  established  his  dominion  in  East  Tennes- 
see, and  from  his  lines  in  the  central  "West,  now  hoped  to  inun- 
date South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  South  Alabama.' 

In  the  *face  of  this  critical  military  situation,  came  the  as- 
tounding disclosure  from  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  War,  Mr. 
James  Seddon,  that  the  effective  force  of  the  army  was  "  not 
more  than  a  half,  never  two-thirds  of  the  numbers  in  ~the 
ranks."  . 

In  stating  this  deplorable  fact,  the  Secretary  avoided  attribu- 
ting it  to'its  paramount  causes — the  fault  of  his  own  adminis- 
tration ;  the  remissness  of  discipline  ;  the  weak  shunning  of  the 
death-penalty  in  our  armies,  and  that  paltry  quackery  which 
proposed  to  treat  the  great  evil  of  desertion  with  "  proclama- 
tions" and  patriotic  appeals.  He  did  wnat  was  worse  than  this 
insincerity ;  for  he  proposed  to  repair  that  evil  of  absenteeism, 
wiiich  the  government  itself  had  occasioned,  by  new  and  violent 
measures,  to  replenish  the  army.  These  were  an  extension  of 
the  conscription,  which  endangered  the  exhaustion  of  the  mili- 
tary reserves  of  the  country ; — the  ex  post  facto  annulment  of 
all  contracts  for  substitution,  which  was  to  the  scandal  of  the 
moral  world,  and  to  the  lively  dissatisfaction  of  more  than  sev- 
enty thousand  persons,  many  of  whom  were  indispensable  in  civil 
employments,  and  by  their  wealth  and  social  position,  command- 
ed an  influence  which  the  government  could  not  afford  to  de- 
spise;— and,  to  crown  all,  the  supercedure  of  all  exemptions  by  a 
system  of  details  in  the  War  Department,  which  would  have 
transferred  the  question  6f  all  relief  with  respect  to  the  burdens 
of  the  war,  from  the  proper  constitutional  jurisdiction  and  col- 


12  THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  0 

lective  wisdom  6f  Congress,  to  the  exclusive  discretion,  capricfc 
or  malice  of  a  single  official. 

Such  measures  were  finished  pieces  of  demagogUeism.  The 
various  propositions  made  to  Congress  for  further  military  drafts 
at  the*  expense  of  public  faith,  and  the  gravest  interests  of  the 
citizen  and  producer  was  calculated  to  find  favour,  of  course,  in 
the  army,  which,  as  designing  politicians  knew,  contained  the 
great  body  of  voters  in  the  country  and  was  destined  to  hold  the 
balance  of  political  power  in  the  Confederacy. 

The  vice  of  our  public  men  was  an  inordinate  passion  for  aa 
ephemeral  and  worthless  popularity.  The  entire  legislation  of 
the  country,  Confederate  and  State;  was  demoralized  by  a  pe- 
culiar demagogueism.  All  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  country 
were  filled  with  schemes  of  agrarianism  for  the  benefit  of  the 
soldier,  and  assaults  on. the  most  important  civil  rights  and  in- 
terests at  the  instance  of  the  blind  passions  of  the  army. 

The,  annulment,  by  the  Confederate  Congress,  of  contracts 
heretofore  concluded  for  military  substitutes^  was  an  act  of  un- 
paralleled infamy.  In  making  the  assertion  that  the  substitu- 
tion wasliot  a  contract,  but  a  privilege  accorded  by  the  authori- 
ties, the  government  adopted  the  argument  of  the  'despot:  to 
this  effect  that  the  rights  of  the'  people  is  the  pleasure  of  the 
sovereign,  to  be  enjoyed  with  becoming  humility.  In  assuming 
to  break  tlie  contract  as  to  the  principal,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
maintain  it  in  force  against  the  substitute,  the  government  stul- 
tified itself,  and  violated  the  plainest  and  justest  of  legal  max- 
ims, that  a  contract  broken  on  one  side,  is  broken  on  all  sides. 
In  attempting  this  violence  in  the  face  of  the  admitted  fact  that 
nearly  half  of  the  army  Were  out  of  the  ranks,  the  government 
avoided  the  plain  duty  of  replenishing  the  army  with  these  ab- 
sentees ;  proposed  to  replace  seasoned  veterans  by  raw  malcon- 
tents ^  and,  for  a  nominal  accession  to  its  military  forces,  to 
sacrifice  recorded  pledges-;  to  wound  the  confidence  and  affec- 
tions of  the  people;  and  to  perpetrate  a  great  moral  evil,  for 
which  the  compensation  in  any  practical  benefit  was  utterly  dis- 
proportionate. 

If  such  an  act  of  perfidy  had  been  accomplished  by*  the  Lin- 
coln government,  the  Southern  newspapers  wauld  have  exclaim- 
ed against  it  as  an  unequalled  example  of  despotism.     But  when 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  13  ' 

it  was  perpetrated  by  their  own  government,  Southern  jouri:  . 
witlj  few  honourable  exceptions,  were  base  enough  to  sustain  %r 
disguise  it ;  and  one  Southern  Senator,  at  least — a  man  of  the 
name  of  Brown — was  ready  in  his  official  seat,  and  in  the  secu- 
rity of  his  own  exemption  from  military  seyice^  to  bully  the 
^people  with  an  insufferable  insolence  and  to  flourish  from  the 
shelter  of  his  parliamentary  position,  the  vulgar  and  detestable 
threat  of  "  military  power." 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  here,  the  legislation  of  the 
Confederate  Congress,  on  military  subjects.  We  have  forberne 
to  say  here  that  the  condition  of  our  arms  was  desperate  :  it  was 
critical,  but  there' was  no  real  occasion  for  despair,  or  for  that* 
violent  anxiety  which  approaches  it.  There  was  yet  much  room 
for  hope.  We  have  stated  that  the  amount  of  absenteeism  hi 
the  army  was,  at  least,  in  great  part,  the  fault  of  the  authori- 
ties, and.it  is  therefore  not  to  be  taken  as  the  indication  of 
decay  in  the  spirit  of  our  soldiery.  That  spirit  was  yet  brave 
and  resolute.  The  displacement  of  Bragg  from  his  command; 
which  was  at  last  unwillingly  made  by  the  President,  had  com- 
posed a  dangerous  discontent  in  the  armies  of  the  West,  and 
was  the  occasion  of  the  re-organization  of  our  forces  there,  and 
a  reassurance  of  the  spirits  of  the  troops.  In  Virginia,  Lee  still 
hekl  the  enemy  at  bay,  and  possessed  the  unanimous  and  enthu- 
siastic confidence  of  the  country  and  the  army.  At  Charleston. 
Beauregard  had  checked  the  enemy,  broken  the  line  of  his  suc- 
cesses on  the  coast,  and  was  advanced  even  in  his  former  repu- 
tation as  a  skillful  commander.  If  the  prospect  was  chequered* 
in  the  West,  it  was  without  a  serious  shadow  in  the  East ;  and, 
although  a  large  portion  of  the  Confederacy  had  passed  into  tje 
possession  of  the  enemy,  the  general  condition,  at  least,  exter- 
nally, was  not  so  serious  as  when,  in  1862,  Richmond  was  threat- 
ened, and  there  were  two  hundred  'and  ten  thousand  Federal 
soldiers  in  Virginia  alone. 


.  •     v.. 

In  the  meantime  there  came  ja  new  and  powerful  appeal  to  the 
patriotism  and  resolution  of   the  Confederacy.     The  Yankee 


14  THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS. 

Congress  had  assembled  simultaneously  with  that  of  the  Con- 
federacy, and,  for  the  first  time  irT  the  war,  the  conditions  i^pon 
which  peace  would  be  made  with  the  South  were  officially  an- 
nounced. They  were  .contained  in  the  message  and  proclama- 
tion of  Abraham  Lincoln.  *     They  were  briefly  these  :  the  forci- 


*'The  following  are  the  material  portions. of  this  remarkable  proclamation  : 
Whereas,  In  and  by  the   Constitution   of  the  United   States,  it  is  provided 
that  the  President  shall  have  power  to  give  reprieves  and  pardon3  for  otfenees 
agaiustthe  United  States,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment,  and 

Whereas,  a  rebellion  now  exists  whereby  .the  loyal  State  Governments  of 
several  States  have  for  a  long  time  been  subverted,  aifd  many  persons  have 
committed  and  are  now  guilty  of  treason  against  the  United  States,  and 

Whereas,  with  reference  to  said  rebellion  and  treason,  laws  have  been  en- 
acted by  Congress  declaring  forfeitures  and  confiscations  of  property,  and  lib- 
eration of  slaves,  all  upon  terms  and  conditions  therein  stated;  and  also  de- 
claring that  the  President  was  thereby  authorized  at  any  time  thereafter,  by 
proclamation  to  extend  to  persons  who  niay  have  participated  in  the  existing 
rebellion  in  any  State,  or  part  thereof,  pardon  and  amnesty,  with  such  excep- 
tions, and  at  such  times  and  on  such  conditions  as  he  may  deem  expedientfbr 
the  public  welfare,  and  .  "• 

Whereas,  the  Congressional  declaration  for  limited  and  conditional  pardon, 
accords  with  the  well-established  judicial  exposition  of  the  pardoning  power. 
and 

Whereas,  with  reference  to  the  said  rebellion  the  President  of  the  United 
States  has  issued  several  proclamations  and  provisions  in  regard  to  the  libe- 
ration of  slaves,  and 

Whereas,  it  is  now  desired  by  sornje  persons  heretofore  engorged  in  said  re- 
bellion, to  assume  their  allegiance  to  the  United  States,  and  to  reinaugurate 
loyal  State  Governments  within  and  for  their  respective^  States; 

Therefore,  I  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  do  proclaim, 
declare  and  make  known  to  all  persons  who  have  directly  or  by  implication 
participated  in  the  existing  rebellion,  except  as  hereinafter  excepted,  that  a 
full  pardon  is  hereby  granted  to  them  and  each  of  them,  with  restoration  of 
ail  rights  of  property  except  as  to  slaves,  and  in  property  eases  where  the  rigkii 
of  third  parties  shall  have  intervened,  and  tipon  the  condition  that  every  such 
person  shall  take  and  subscribe  p.h  oath,  and  thenceforward  keep  and  main, 
tain  said  oath  inviolate,  and  which  oath  shall  be  registered  for  permanent  pre- 
servation, and  shall  be  of  the  tenor  and  effect'following,  to  wit : 

'•  I, ,  do  solemnly  swear  in  the  presence ©f  Almighty  God,  that  I  will 

henceforth  faithfully  support,  protect  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  the  Union  of  the  States  thereunder,  and  that  I  will  in  like 
manner  abide  by  and  faithfully  support  all  acts  of  Congcess  passed  during  the 
existing  rebellion  with  reference  to  slaves,  so  long  and  so  far  as  not  repealed,  modi  - 
lied,  or  held  void  by  Congress  or  by  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  that 
I  will,  in  like  manner,  abide  and   faithfully  support**!!  proclamations  of  the 


THE   RIVAL    ADMINISTRATIONS.  15* 

ble  emancipation  of  the  slaves  ;  the  perpetuity  of  confiscations ; 
pardon  on  condition  of  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  government, 
to  the  Union,  and  to  the  Abolition  parti/  of  the  North  ;  the  ex- 
ception from  this  pardon  of  all  important  ranks  in  the  army  and' 
conditions  in  political  life  ;  and  Anally  the  n»onstrous  "republi- 
can anomaly  that  one-tenth  of  the  voters  in  any  of  the  Confed- 
erate States,  declaring  for  these  terms,  "  should  be  recognized 
as  the  true  government  of  the  State."  !  In  proposing  these  ut- 
terly infamous  terms,  this  Yankee*  monster  of  inhumanity  and 
falsehood,  had  the  audacity  to  declare  that  in  some  of  the  Con- 
federate States  the  elements  for  reconstruction  were  ready  for 
action  ;   that  those  who  controlled  them  differed  however  as  to. 


•  lent made  during  the  existing  rebellion  having  reference  to  slaves,  so 
far  as'not  modified  or*  declared  void  by  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  So 
heJp  me  God.'"  # 

The  persons  excepted  from   the  benefits   of  the  foregoing  provisions  are  all 
who  lire  or  shall  have  been  civil  or  diplomatic  officers  or  agents   of  the  so- 
Mii.cd  Confederate  Government;  all  who  have  left  judicial  stations  under  the 
r.''.uted  Slates  to  aid  in  the  rebellion  ?  all  who  are  or  shall  have  been  military 
*»c  naval  officers  of  said  so  called  Confederate  Government  above  the  rank  of 
nel  in  the  army,  of  Lieutenant  in  the  navy  ;  all  who  left  seats  in  the  Uni- 
Mates  Congress  .to  aid  the  rebellion. 
Ail  who  resigned  commissions   in  the  army  or   nary   of  the  United  State?, 
and  afterwards  aided  tjic  rebellion,  ari*  all  who  have  engaged  in  any  way  in 
ting  colored  persons  or  white   persons   in  charge   of  suchfctherwise  than 
lawfully  as  prisoners  of  war,  who  have  been  found  in  the   United   States  ser- 
vice as  soldiers,  seamen  *r  in  any  other  capacity. 

And  I  do  funhec  proclaim,  declare  and  make  known?  ftiat  whenever,  in  any 
pf  the  States  of  Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Tennessee,  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  Florida,  South  Carolina  and  North  Carolina,  a  number  of  per- 
sons, not  less  than  one-tenth  in  number  of  the  votes  cast  in  such  States,  at  the 
Presidential  election  of  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1860,  eaoh  having  taken  the 
oath  aforesaid,  and  not  having. since  violated  it,  and  being  a  qualified  voter 
>y  the  election  law  of  the  State  existing  immediately  before  the  so-called  act  of 
■i?o^ssion,  and  excluding  all  omers,  shall  re-establish  a  State  Government, 
which  shall  be  republican,  and  in  ho  wise  contravening  said  oath,  such  sha'l 
be  recognized  as  the  true  Government  of  the  State,  and  the  State  shall  receive 
thereunder  the  benefit  of  the  Constitutional  prolusion  which  declares  that 
.  '-The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every «State  in  the  Union  a  Republi 
can  form  of  Government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them  against  invasion,  on 
implication  of  the  Legislature  or  of.  the  Executive,  when  the  Legislature  can- 
not  be  convened,  against  domestic  violence." 


•16  THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

the  plan  of  action  ;  and  that,   "  by  the  proclamation  a  plan  is 
presented  which  may  be  accepted  by  them  as  a  rallying  point, 
and  which  they  are  assured  in  advance  will  not.be  rejected  here." 
This  insulting  and  brutal  proposition  of  the  Yankee  Govern- 
ment was  the  apt  »esponse  to  tfrose  few  cowardly  factions  which 
in  North  Carolina,  and  in  some  parts  of  Georgia  and  Alabama, 
hinted  at  "reconstruction."     It  was  as  tne  sound  of  a  trumpet 
to  every  brave  man  in  the  South  to*meet  and  to  contest  a  ques- 
tion of  life  and  death.     Appeals  had  formerly  been  made  in  the 
Confederacy  against   "reconstruction"   on  such  arguments  as" 
the  conduct  of  the  enemy  in  the  war ;  his.political.  prostitution ;  his 
vandalism  ;  and  sentimental  motives  of  vengeance.     There  were 
truth  and  eloquence  in  those  appeals.     But  now  there  was  ano- 
ther added  to  them  which  addressed  us  not  only  in  our  passions 
but  in  every  fibre  of  our  selfishness,  and  in  every  ramification  X)f 
our  interests.     It  was  uxe  authoritative  exposition  to  the  South 
of  the  consequences  of  its   submission.     These  oould  no  longer 
be  misconstrued:  they  were  gibbets,  proscription,  universal  pov- 
erty, the  subversion  of  our  social  system,  a  feudal  allegiance  to 
the  Abolitionists  and  the  depths  of  dishonour. 


The  proclamation  of  President  Lincoln  was  made  under  cer- 
tain affectations  of  benevolent  zeal  for  the  negro.  He  declared 
that  his  former  h  emancipation"  proclamation  had  "  much  im- 
proved the  tone  of  public  sentiment  in  foreign  countries,''  and 
he  insisted  that  to  abandon  it  would  be  to  the  negro  "  a  cruel 
and  astounding  breach  of  faith." 

In  view  of  these  pretensions,  it  is  not  out  of  place  here  to 
make  a  brief  summary  of  the  true  questions  of  the  war,  and  its 
real  relations  to*  negro  slavery  in  the  South. 

A  French  pamphlet  on  the  American  War,  published  at  Paris, 
holds  the  following  language : . 

"  The  pride  of'  the  Ntrth  will  never  stoop  to  admit  the  supe- 
riority of  Southern  men;  and  yet  it  is  from  these  that  the 
"Union  drew  its  best  statesmen  and  a  majority  of  its  presidents. 
"The  pride  of  the  Nx>rth  will  bend  only  to  necessity,  because  it 


THE  BIVAfi  ADMINISTRATIONS.  17 

"  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  progress  of  the  age.  To-day  the 
"Americans  of  the  North  are  as  completely  foreign  to  the  fa- 
"mily  of  nations  as  they  were  twenty  years  ago.  They  under- 
"  stand  nothing  but  the  narrowest  and  most  mechanical  mercan- 
tilism, the  art  of  purchase  and  sale  ;  and  they  long,  to  annihi- 
"  late  the  Confederate  States  in  order  that  the  South,  by  its  intelli- 
"  gence,  its  enterprise,  and  the  talent  of  its  statesmen,  may  not 
"  throw  down  the  rampart  it  has  built  up  against  Europeanism, 

*  *  *  "  The  federals  are  so  well  aware  of  this  that  the  war 
u  which  they  are  waging  is  really  and  mainly  a  war  of  interest. 
"  The  producing,  agricultural  South  was  the  commercial  vassal 
"  of  the  North,  which  insists  upon  keeping  its  best  customer : 
"emancipation  is  merely  a  skillful  device"  for  entrapping  the 
"  sympathies  of  European  liberalism.  *  *  *  *  *  *  The 
"  Northern  idea  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  making  the  negro 
"  food  for  powder  or  by  exiling  him  from  his  home  to  die  of  hun- 
"  ger  is  now  thoroughly  understood  in  Europe.  Our  notions  of 
"  philanthropy  and  our  moral  sense  alike  revolt  from  these  fe- 
"  rocious  exaggerations  of  the  love  of  liberty." 

The  above  is  an  admirable  summary  of  the  questions  of  the 
war — especially  of  the  "  slavery  question."  .  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Anti-Slavery  party  in  the  North  had,  through  the  vio- 
lence of  its  measures,  and  the  exposure  of  its  hollow  pretensions 
for  the  negro,  lost  much  of  that  sympathy  in  Europe  which  it 
had  formerly  obtained  ;  while  the  war  had  also  given  occasion 
to  intelligent  persons  in  all  parts  of  the  world  for  a  more  tho- 
rough, a  more  interested  and  a  more  practical  study  of  slavery 
in  the*  South.  The  old  stories  which  the  newspapers  of  the 
enemy  revived  of  fiendish  masters  in  the  South  and  pandemo- 
niums on  the  cotton  plantations,  had  now  come  to  be  objects  of 
skepticism  or  derision  in  Europe  ;  especially  when  these  cheap 
and  frightful  romances  were  seen  to  be  simply  stories  concocted 
between  fugitive  .negroes  and  credulous  Tools  who  listened  to 
them,  and  embellished  them  for  "sensations"  in  Yankee  prints.* 


*  The  following  was  published  in  the  summer  of  1863,  in  Harper's  Journal 
of  Civilization.     It'^s   an  excellent- specimen  of  the  uraw-head-and-bloody- 
boneslof  Yankee  literature  on  the  subject  of  the  negro.  Itf  purported    to   be 
2 


18  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

In  connection  with  the  subjecf  of  the  relations  of  slavery  to 
the  w,ar,  it  becomes  interesting  to  inquire  what  real  benefits  to 
the  negro  were  accomplished  by  the  political  measures  of  the 
Lincoln  government.  The  famous  "emancipation"  proclama- 
tion extended  "  freedom  "  to  the  negro,  merely  to  subject  him 
to  a  worse  fate,  and  to  transfer  him  from  the  peaceful  service  of 
the  plantation  to  that  of  the  military  camp.  It  was  followed  • 
by  various  acts  of  Congress  to  enlist  the-  negro  in  the  military 
service.  It  was  stated  by  Mr.  SeWard,  in  a  diplomatic  circular 
dated  the  12th  of  August,  1863,  that  nearly  seventy  thousand 
negroes  were  at  that  time  employed  in  the,  Yankee  armies,  of 
whom  twenty-two  thousand  were  actually  bearing  arms  in  the 


the  statement  of  fugitive  slaves  from  an  estate  in  Mississippi,  "by  way  of  il- 
lustrating the  degree  of  brutality  which  slavery  has  developed  in  the  South." 
"  The  tratment  of  the  slaves,  they  say,  has  been  growing  worse  and  worse 
for  the  last  six  or  seven  years. 

"  Flogging  with  a  leather  strap  on  the  naked  body  is  common  ;  also,  pad- 
dling the  body  with  a  hand-saw  until  the  skin  is  a  mass  of  blisters,  and  then 
breaking  the  blisters  with  the  teeth  of  the  sajv.  They  have  "very  often"  seen 
slaves  stretched  out  upon  the  ground  with  hands  and  feet  held  down  by  fel- 
low slaves,  or  lashed  to  stakes  driven  into  the  ground  for  "burning."  Hand- 
fuls  of  dry  corn  husks  are  then  lighted,  and  the  burning  embers  are  whipped 
off  with  a  stick  so  as  to  fall  in  showers  of  live  sparks  upon  the  naked  back. 
This  is  continued  until  the  victim  is  covered  with  blisters.  If,  in  his  writh- 
ings  of  torture  the  slave  gets  his  hands  free  to  brush  off  the  fire,  the  burning 
brand  is* applied  to  them. 

"  Another  method  of  punishment,  which  is  inflicted  for  the  higher  order  of 
crimes  such  as  running  away,  or  other  refractory  conduct,  is  to  dig  a  hole  in 
the  ground  large  enough  for  the  slave  to  squat  or  lie  down  in.  The  victim  is 
then  stripped  naked  and  placed  in  the  hole,  and  a  covering  or  grating  of  green 
sticks  is  laid  over  the  opening.  Upon  this  a  quick  fire  is  built,  and  the  live 
embers  sifted  through  upon  the  naked  flesh  of  the  slave,  until  his  body  is 
blistered  and  swollen  almost  to  bursting.  With  just  enough  of  life  to  enable 
him  to  crawl,  the  slave  is  then  allowed  to  recover  from  his  wounds  if  he  can, 
or  to  end  his  sufferings  by  death. 

"  '  Charley  Sloo'  and  '  Overton,'  two  hands,  were  both  murdered  by  these 
cruel  tortures.  '  Slco'  was  whipped  to  death,  dying  under  the  inflictionr 
or  soon  after  punishment.  '  Overton'  was  laid  naked  upon  his  face  and 
burned  as  above  described,  so  that  the  chords  of  his  legs  and  the  musoles  of 
the  back  refused  longer  to  perform  their  office.  He  was,  neverthelfess,  forced 
into  the  field  to  labor,  but  being  crippled  was  unable  tt«nove  quick  enough 
to  suit  'Jeems  ;'  so  one  day,  in  a  fit  of  passion,  he  struck  him  on  fye  head 
with  a  heavy  stick  and  kitted  him. 


THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  19 

field ;  and  at  a  later  date  (that  of  the  meeting  of  the  Yankee 
Congress  in  December),  the  whole  number  of  these,  African  al- 
lies of  the  North  was  said  to  exceed  one  hundred  thousand. 
The  employment,  as  soldiers,  against  the .  Confederacy,  of  this 
immense  number  of  blacks,  was  a  brutality  and  crime  in  sight 
of  the  world  ;*it  was  the  ignoring  of  civilization  in  warfare  ;  it 
was  a  savage  atrocity  inflicted  on  the  South ; — but  it,  certainiy, 
was  no  benefit  to  the  negro.  14  could  be  no  benefit  to  him  that 
he  should  be  exposed  to  the  fury  of  the  war,  and  translated 
from  a  peaceful  and  domestic#sphere  of  labour  to  the  hardships 
of  the  camp  and  the  mortal  perils  of  the  battle-field. 

The  scheme  of  the  colonization  of  the  negro  in  the  invaded 


"Tom'  had  the  consumption,  but  was  forced  to  work  in  the  cotton  field. 
One  night  he  was  missing  from  his  cabin.  Two  days  afterward  his  body  was 
found  in  the  field,  where  he  had  fallen  and  died  on  his  way  home. 

'The  poor  old  slave  had  gone  to  rest.' 

% 

.**  'Edmond,*  belonging  o^n  the  widow  G.'s  plantation,  has  been  a  witness  of ' 
or  knowing  to  several  cases  of  ptmishment  by  the  burning  process.  Two  of 
these  were  of  girls  belonging  to  the  widow  G.,  in  New  Orleans,  and  the  others 
occurring  on  her  'island  plantation,'  before  referred  to.  America,  wife  of 
Essex,  one  of  the  women  in  the  party,  related  the  particulars,  of  one  ca? 
follows:  There  was  a  middle-aged  womad  in  the  family,  named  Margaret  - 
who  haU  a  nursing  child.  Mrs.G.  ordered  Margaret  to  wean  the  child.  The  babe 
was  weakly,  and  Margaret  did  not  wish  to  do  so.  Mrs.'G.  told  her  that  she  would 
examine  her  bretist  thfe  next  Monday,  and,  if  she  found  any  milk  in  it.  she 
would  punish  her  severely.  Moriday  came  round,  and  on  that  day  Marga- 
ret's stent  was  to  spin  eighteen  "broaches"— spools — but  she  did  not  finish  it 
At  night  the  promised  examination  topk  place,  and  the  breast  of  Margaret 
gave  but  too  convincing  proof  that,  in  obedience  to  the  yearnings  of  a  mo- 
ther's heart,  she  had  spurned  the  threat  of  the  inhuman  mistress.  Mrs  G 
then  ordered  the  handsaw,  the  leather  strap,  and  a  wash  bowl  of  water.  The 
woman  was  laid  upon  her  face,  her  clothes  stripped  up  to  around  her  neck 
and  'Becky'  and  'Jane'  were  called  to  hold  her  hands  and  feet.  Mrs.  G. 
then  paddled  her  with  the  hand-saw,  sitting  composedly  in  a  chair  over  her 
victim.  After  striking  some  one  hundred  blows,  she  changed  to  the  use  of 
the  leather  strap,  which  she  would  dip  into  the  wash  bowl  in  order  to  give  it 
greater  power  of  torture.  Under  this  infliction,  the  screams  of  the  woman 
died'^way  t©  a  faint  moan,  but  the  'sound  of  the  whip'  continued  until  nearly 
11  o'clock.  'Jane'  was  then  ordered  to  bring  the  hot  tongs,  the  woman  was 
turned  over  upon  her  back,  audMrs.  G.  attempted  to  grasp  the  woman's  nip- 
ples with  the  heated  implement.  The  writhings  of  the  mother  foiled  her 
purpose;  but  between  the  breasts  the  skin  and  flesh  were  horribly  burned." 


20  THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

districts  of  the  South,  was  alike  destitute  of  "benefit  to  him, 
and  destructive  of  #the  white  "civilization  "  under  whose  aus- 
pices it  was  conducted.'  "Wherever  this  new  system  of  labour 
was  introduced,  the  negro  suffered,  the. plantation  relapsed  into 
W^eds,  the  garden  disappeared,  and  desolation  and  ruin  took  up 
their  abodes.  It  had  converted-  the  rice  coasts  6*f  South  Caro- 
lina into  barrens.  It  had  been  instituted  on  a  grand  scale  in 
Louisiana.  The  result  was,  to*  use  the  language  of  a  Yankee 
writer,  this  beautiful  State  was  fast  becoming  "  an  alligator 
pleasure-ground."  Where  formerly  had  nourished  rich  and 
teeming  plantations,  were  to  be  seen  here  and  there  some  show 
of  cultivation,  some  acres  of  corn  and  cane;  but  these  were 
"government"  plantations;  the  able-bodied  negroes  had  been 
forced  into  the  Yankee  military  service,  and  a  few  aged  and 
shiftless  negroes,  who  poked  lazily  through  the  weed-growth, 
were  the  only  signs  of  labour  in  the  vast  districts  occupied  by 
the  enemy.  In  Louisiana,  where  the  Yankees  had  indulged  such 
hopes  of  "infusing  new  life"  by  free  labour  and  the  scientific 
farming  of  Massachusetts,  the  development  of  the  country,  its 
return  in  crops,  in  wealth  amounted  to  little  more  than  nothing. 
The  negro  had  merely  exchanged  his  Southern  master  for  a 
Massachusetts  shoe-maker,  who  was  anxious  to  become  a  Louis- 
iana sugar-maker.  His  condition  was  not  improved  ;  his  com- 
forts were  decreased-;  and  the  country  itself,  redeemed  by  the 
most  tedious  labours  from  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
brought  to  a  point  of  fertility  unexampled  in  American  soils, 
was  fast  reverting  to  the  original  swamp.  Louisiana  had  taken 
more  than  fifty  years  to  raise  the  banks  of  trie  Mississippi,  to 
drain  and  redeem  the  swamp  lands,  and  to  make  herself  a  great 
producing  State.  But,  said  the  N«w  York  World,  "it has  re- 
"  quired  only  a  few  months  for  the  Administration  at  Washing- 
ton to  prepare  the  State  for  its  return  to  its  original  worth- 
"  lessness  ;  to  '  restore  '  it  to  barbarism ;  to  re-people  it,  in  spots, 
"with  half-bred  bastards;  to  drive  out  every  vestige  of  civili- 
"  zation,  and  to  make  the  paradise  of  the  South  a  rank,  rotten, 
"miasmatic,  alligator  and  moccasin  swamp-ground  again." 

The  fact  is  indisputable,  that  in  all  the  localities  of  the  Con-- 
>  ederacy  where  the  enemy  had,  obtained  a  foothold,  the  negroes 


TEE    RIVAL    ADMINISTRATIONS.  '21 

had  been  reduced  by  mortality  during  the  war  to  not  more  than 
one-half  their  previous  number. 

'  ,The  affectation  of  the  Yankee  Jor  the  good  of  the  negro  was 
intended  (however  ineffectually),  to  solicit  the  sympathies  of 
Europe  in  the  war.  It  could  no  longer  hope  to  impose  upon  the 
South,  and  it  did  not  hesitate  to  unmask  to  it  its  brutal  and  fe- 
rocious insincerity.  In  the  meantime,  the  "  war-to-the-knife  " 
party  in  the  North,  with  theiarge  accession  of  so  many  blacks 
to  its  armies,  and  a  recent  confirmation  at  the  polls  of  its  partj- 
strength,  was  preparing  for  new  careers  of  atrocity  and  crime. 


VII. 


While  thus  the  war  waxed  in  the  hands  of  the  North,  the 
Administration  at  Richmond  had  nothing  to  respond  to  its  fero- 
city but  a  feeble  sentimentalism  and  a  weak  protest  for  the 
-rights  of  humanity,  which  amused  the  enemy,  and  disgusted  the 
stern  spirit  of  a  people  fighting  for  their  liberties.  4C  Retalia- 
tion "  had  by  this  time  become  a  lost  word  in  our  vocabulary. 
In  the  year  now  well  nigh  past,  the  Yankees  had  enacted  bar- 
barities greater  than  those  of  former  years,  in  proportion  as  they 
were  encouraged  by  impunity.  They  had  burned  the  town  of 
Darien,  and  this,  one  of  the  oldest  towns  in  Georgia,  the  New 
Inverness  of  Oglethorpe's  time,  was  now  a  plain  of  ashes  and 
blackened  chimneys.  They  had,  in  a  raid  on  the  Combahee, 
committ^*  to  the  flames  the  beautiful  town  of  Bluffton.  They 
had  attempted  to  destroy  Charleston  by  an  incendiary  composi- 
■tion.  They  had  made  a  desert  of  the  whole  country  between 
the  Big  Black  and  the  Mississippi,  and  in  every  district  of  the 
South  which  they  had  penetrated,  houses  had  been  either  pil- 
laged or  burnt,  crops  laid  waste,  and  enormities  committed  which 
exhausted  the  calendar  of  crimes. 

Yet  we  have  seen  that  when  General  Lee  invaded  the  terri- 
tory of  the  North  he  had  omitted  even  the  devastation  of  Ae 
enemy's  country,  had  paid  the  Yankees'  own  prices  for  their  sup- 
plies, and  had,  in  fact,  given  a  protection  to-  their  property 
which  had  never  been  afforded  that  of  our  own  citizens,  either 


...... 

22  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

from  the  rapacity  of  the  soldier  or  that  of  the  impressment  agent. 

It  is  true  that  of  this  singular  behaviour  President  Davis  said 
in  his  message  to  Congress*  "Though  the  forbearance  -  may 
"  have  been  unmerited  and  unappreciated -by  the  enemy,  it  was 
"  imposed  by  their  "  [our  soldiers] '"  own  self-respect,  which  for- 
"  bade  their  degenerating  from  Christian  warriors  into  plunder- 
ing ruffians."  But  herein  the  President  sought  to  impose 
upon  the  public  mind  not  only  a  wretched  piece  of  sentimental- 
ism,  but  a  glaring  fallacy  ^  alike  unworthy  of  his  intellect.  The 
punishment  of  the  Yankees  for  what  they  had  done  in  the 
South  certainly  did  not  mean  an  imitation  of  the  wrong — &  re- 
taliation in  hind.  The  Southern  people  had  almost  unanimously 
applauded  General  Lee's  orders  in  Pennsylvania  restraining  pil- 
lage and  private  outrage.  But  there  were  penalties  other  than 
those  of  marauding  which  might  have  been  measured  out  to  the 
enemy,  and  have  inflicted  upon  him  some  injury  commensurate 
with  what  we  had  suffered  at  his  hands.  It  would  not  have  been 
unjust,  it  would  not  have  been  immoral,  it  would  not  have  de- 
tracted from  our  "self-respect,"  it  would  not  have  endangered 
the  discipline  of  our  troops,  it  would  not  have  been  an  act  un- 
becoming "  Christian  warriors,"  to  have  laid  waste  the  enemy's 
country,  if  done  under  the  justification  of  retaliation,  with  the 
deliberation  of  official  orders,  and  by  the  army  acting  in  line  of 
battle.  But  no  such  orders  were  given;  no  such  lines  of  battle 
carried  with  it  the  chastisements  of  real,  war  ;  and  the  fertile 
acres  of  the  Pennsylvania  Valley  were  untouched  by  the  hands 
of  the  "Christian  warriors."  ■  ## 

The  subject  of  "  retaliation  "  brings  to  the  mind  a  number  of 
specific  acts  in  which  the  Confederate  government  had  failed, 
alike,  in  the  execution  of  justice  and  in  the  protection  of  its  own 
people.  *-The  record  of  these  affords  an  exhibition  of  weakness 
that  is,  positively,  without  parallel-  in  the  history  of  govern- 
ments. .In  contrasting  the  rival  administrations  of  the  North 
and  South,  it  is  indispensable  here  to  make  a  brief  review  of 
the  incidents  to  which  we  have  referred  in  the  history  of  the 
"retaliation  "  policy.  They  are  rapidly  grouped  in  the  sum- 
mary which  follows : 

1.  Shortly  after  the  capture  of  New  Orleans,  General  Butler 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  23 

executed  a  citizen  of  the  Confederacy,  William  B.  Munford,  for 
the  extraordinary  crime  of  "  disrespect "  to  the  Yankee  flag. 

Instead  of  making  prompt  retaliation,  the  Confederate  gov- 
ernment found  a  conveniently  circuitous  course  in  addressing, 
Several  months  after  the  event,  the  singularly  gratuitous  inquiry 
to  the  Lincoln  government,  whether  the  act  of  Butler  was  "  ap- 
proved "by  it. 
.  The  authorities  at  Washington  returned  this  answer: 

Headquarters  of  the  Army,  \ 

Washington,  Aug.  9,  1862.     / 

Gen'l  R.  E.  Lee,  Comd'g,  &c. : 

General — 'Your  two  communications  of  the  2nd  inst.,  with 
enclosures,  are  received.  As  these  papers  are  couched  in  lan- 
guage exceedingly  insulting  to  the.  government  of  the  United 
States,  I  must  respectfully  decline  to  receive  them.  They  are 
returned  herewith. 

Very  respectfully,  *  » 

Your  ob't'  serv't, 

H.  W.  Halleck, 
Gen'1-in-Chief  U.  S.  Army. 

And  here  ended  the  "whole  matter.  .    k 

2.  At  Palmyra,  in  Missouri,  General  McNeil  murdered  in 
cold  blood  ten  soldiers  of  the  Confederacy. 

Although  the  Confederate  government  must  have  had  prompt 
official  intelligence  of  this  outrage,  it  was  only  several  months 
thereafter,  when  "the  Palmyra  massacre  "  had  been  inconve- 
niently noised  in'the  newspapers,  that  President  Davis  ordered 
by  telegraph  the  execution,  in  retaliation,  of  ten  Yankee  prison- 
ers, in  the  department  of  the  Trans-Mississippi. 

The  bloody  telegram,  communicated  by  the  Richmond  au- 
thorities to  the  press-  with  peculiar  liberality  of  information, 
quieted  it  and  consoled  the  public.  But  thajj  was  all ;  the  tele- 
graphic order  was  never  executed ;  it  was  a  dead  letter,  that 
died  in  the  public  mind;  and  the  Palmyra  massacre,  was  not 
only  unavenged,  but  justice  itself  was  cheated  by  a  false  and 
most  unworthy  shoiv  of  compliance  w;th  its  demands. 

3.  Under  the  "Death  Order"  of  Burnside,  two  Confederate 
officers,  Captains  Corbin  and  McGraw,  had  been  executed  for 
recruiting  white  soldiers  in  Kentucky,  a  part  of  our  own  terri- 


24  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

tory,  embraced  in  our  political  system  and  represented  in  our 
Congress ;  at  a  time  when  the  Yankees  were  recruiting  negro 
soldiers  in  our  political  jurisdiction,  and  in  the  circle  of  our 
homes. 

By  the  order  of  the  Confederate  government,  two  Yankee 
prisoners  were  selected  by  a  formal  •  lot  *  at  "Richmond,  upon 
whom  retaliation  was  to  be  visited.  The  day  of  their  execution 
was  fixed.  But  instead  of  hanging  them,  President  Davis  ar- 
ranged a  back-door  of  mercy  by  commissioning  a  personage  no 
less  considerable  than  Mr.  Stephens,  Vice-President  of  the  Re- 
public, to  make  arrangements  in  Washington  "  to  temper  the 
present  •  cruel  character  of  the  contest."  The  "  back-door  of 
mercy  "  was  closed  in  his  face.  Mr.  Stephens  went  as  far  as 
Hampton  Roads,  where  he  was  stopped  by  the  enenTy's  Admi- 
ral, with'  the  curt  information  from  Washington,  that  the  enemy 
wished  no  further  communication  with  the  Confederacy  than  it 
already  had  through  the  ordinary  military  channels.  , 

In  the  meantime,  the  Yankee  government,  without  troubling 
itself  with  a  selection  by  lot,  had  summarily  designated  two  of 
tlie  most  important  prisoners  in  its  hands  as  victims  to  repay 
with  their  lives  the  tragedy  that  had  been  appointed  at  Rich- 
mond. The  consequences  were,  that  the  tragedy  did  not  come 
on°,  but  the  Confederate  government  replied  with  some  brave 
words,  that  it  was  not  dismayed  by  the  threat,  but  would,  at  its 
convenience,  execute  the  penalties  it  had  pronounced.  The  day 
of  execution  passed ;  there  was  no  public  notice  of  respite  of 
pardon;  there  was  no  other  day  of  execution  appointed;  and 
the  convenient  silence  .of  the  authorities  was  evidence  enough 
that  the  matter  Was  dropped,  and.  that  they  desired  it  to  pass 
out  of  the  public  mind*  Thus  terminated  this  issue  of  "  re- 
taliation." 

4.  A  notorious  renegrade,  Rucker,-  was  taken  in  the  ranks  of 
the  enemy  in  Western  Virginia,  and  committed  as  a  spy  and 
murderer.  The  Yankees  threatened  the  life  of  one  of  our 
prisoners  of  war,  if  he  should  be  executed. 

The  criminal  was  kept  fifteen  months  without  a  trial,  and  at 
last  conveniently  escaped.  There  was  no  possible  occasion  for 
the  extraordinary  delay  of  a  trial,  unless  *that  the  Confederate 


THE  RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  25 

authorities  feared  to  risk  its  conclusion,  for  the  evidence  was 
ready,  abundant,  and  immediately  at  hand  to  convict  Kim. 

5.  The  Yankees  imprisoned  women  for  waving  handkerchiefs 
at  our  prisoners.  For  offences  not 'much  more  considerable, 
they  put  them  in  political  jails,  and  subjected  them  to  the  vilest 
indignities,  and  to  penalties  whicl^  made  no  distinction  of  sex. 

In  the  summer  of  1863,  a  Mrs.  Patterson  Allen,  &  Yankee 
woman,  was  detected  in  IJichmond  holding  the  most  brutal  and 
treasonable  communication  with  the  enemy;  pointing  out  to  him 
objects  for  his  resentment ;  and  proposing  to  betray  into  his 
hands  as  prisoner  administer  of  Christ,  under  whose  roof,  at  the 
time  the  letter  was  written,  the  Yankee  spy  and  traitress  was 
herself  »a  guest,  and  a  sick  child  of  the  minister  was  dying  in 
the  absence  of  its  father. 

By  special  direction  of. the  Confederate  Secretary  of  "War, 
Mr.  Seddon,  Mrs.  Patterson  Allen,  a  fashionable  woman,  was 
sent,  not  to  prison,  but  to  the  Asylum,  Frances  de  Sales,  in 
Richmond.  Her  trial  had  not  yet  taken  place  ;  and  for  nearly 
six  months  the  vulgarity  of  n- legal  prison  w.as  spared  her,  and 
a  romantic  confinement  in  a  charitable  institution  was  the  chi- 
valric  invention  of  the  Confederacy  for  the  crime  of  treason ! 

6.  It  had  been  estimated  by  the  Confederate  Commissioner 
of  Exchange,  in  the  fall  of  1863,  that  the  enemy  heM  in  im~ 
prisonment  not  less  than  one  thousand  citizens  of  the  Confede- 
racy, who  had  been  captured  in  peaceful  employments,  and  were 
in  no  way  amenable  as  combatants  in  the  war.  • 

In  a  correspondence  on  the  subject  of  exchange*  of  prisoners, 
the  Confederate  government  protested  against  the  outrageous 
practice  of  the  enemy  in  arresting  non-combatants  and  kidnap- 
ping private  citizens  within  his  military  lines  or  elsewhere  with- 
in his  reach.  But  the  enemy  continued  these  arrests,  ajid  no 
retaliation  was  ever  attempted.  At  the  time  unarmed  citizens  of 
the  Confederacy  were  torn  from  their  homes  in  Mississippi  and 
sent  to  the  jails  of  Memphis,  General  Lee  protected  the  citizens 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  allowed  them  even  to  avow  their  political 
animosity  in  his  camps.        '  * 

7.  When  General  Morgan  was  captured  by  the  enemy,  he 
was  carried  to   Cincinnati,  and   thence  he  and  twenty-eight  t>f 


26  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

his  officers  were  taken  to  Columbus,  Ohio,  where  they  were 
shaved,  their  hair  cut  close  by  a  negro  convict,  and  then  locked 
up  in  cells.  Seven  days  afterwards,  forty-two  more  of  (xeneral 
Morgan's  officers  were  conveyed  from  Johnston's  Island  to  the 
penitentiary,rand  subjected  to  the  same  indignities. 

A  correspondence  ensued  between  the  Commissioners  Of  Ex- 
change on  the  subject  of  these  cruelties  and  indignities,  in  which 
the  excuse  was  made  by  the  enemy  that  the  Federal  authority 
was  not  responsible  for  them,  implying  that  the  State  of  Ohio  ' 
having  these  captives  in  her  custody,  had  chosen  to  associate 
them  with  convicts. 

Yet,  at  this  time,  our  government  was,  in  deference  to  "  gen- 
eral orders  "  at  Washington,  treating  as  prisoners  of  war  ne- 
groes captured  in  arms,  who  were  clearly  responsible  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  States,  under  State  laws,  as  criminals.  Ko 
surrender  of  these  criminals  was  made  to  any  of  the  States  of  • 
the^,  Confederacy,  and  when  South  Carolina  made. some  motion 
in  the  matter,  it  was  strangely  hushed  up,  and  the  negro  mal- 
factors  retained  to  this  day  by  the  Confederate  authority  in  full 
enjoyment  of  the  privileges  accorded  them  by  Yankee  edict,  as 
"'prisoners  of  war." 

8.  The  enemy  had  violated  the  cartel.  Under  this  cartel,  for 
many  months,  we  had  restored  to  the  enemy  .many  thousands  of 
prisoners  in  excess  of  those  whom  he  held  for  exchange.  But 
in  July,  when  the  fortune  of  war  favoured  the  Yankees,  and 
theyfheld  the  excess  of  prisoners,  they  had  broken  the  cartel; 
they  had  refused  to  return  to  our  lines  the  prisoners  taken  at 
Gettysburg  ;  and  they  had  gone  further  even  than  this  treach- 
ery, for  they  had  not  only. retained  the  prisoners  captured  by 
them,  but  they  had  declared  null  the  paroles  given  by  the  pris- 
oners captured  by  us  in  the  same  series  of  engagements. 

What  were  the  returns  of  the  Confederate  government  for 
this*  outrage  ?  It  allowed  the  prisoners  in  our  hands  comforts 
not  enjoyed  by  the  men  who  captured  them  in  battle.  It  per- 
mitted the  Yankee  captives  in  Richmond  to  receive  stores  from 
!he  North  to  the  amount  of  half  'a  million  of  dollars.  It  in* 
dulged  them  in  a  festival ;  and  while  our  prisoners  were  sighing 
in  lhe  dungeons  and  penitentiaries  of  the  North,  or  at  John- 


THE   RIVAL   ADMINISTRATIONS.  27 

ston's  Island,  were  (to  use  President  Davis'  own  statement),  dy- 
ing from  the  slow  tortures  of  cold,  "  exposed  to  the  piercing 
cold  of  the  Northern  lakes,  by  men  who  cannot  be  ignorant  oft 
even  if  they  do  not  design,  the  provable  result,"  a  table  d'hote 
was  spread  in  the  Libby  Prison  at  Richmond,  with  all  the  luxu- 
ries that  the  teeming  markets  of  the  Northern  cities  could  af- 
ford. And  this  licentiousness^  with  its  awful  and  terrible  con- 
trast to  our  own  'people,  went  by  the  name  of  Christian  charity 
in  Richmond,  and  was  a  pleasant  humanity  to  be  told  to 
Europe !  • 

*  *  *  *  *  In  his  message  to  Congress,  President  Da- 
vis eloquently  adverted  to  the  savage  ferocity  of  the  enemy  and 
his  crimes.  But  he  had  not  a  word  to  say  of  what  lmd  become 
of  all  his  proclamations,  pronunciamentoes,  gloomy  appeals  and 
terrible  threatenings  with  respect  to  retaliation.  The  truth  was 
they  had  never  resulted  in  one  solitary  performance ;  they  were 
a  record  of  bluster  and  an  exhibition  of  weakness  and  shame 
upon  which  the  President  might  well  turn  his  back.  It  is  re- 
markable that  Mr.  Davis  in  all  these  proceedings  touching  ques- 
tions of  retaliation  should  have  shown  a  character  so  different 
from  that  which  he- exhibited  in  the  domestic  controversies  and 
intrigues  of  his  administration.  In  his  controversies  with  his 
military  officers  he  was  very  obstinate,  very  bitter ;  in  his  at- 
tachment to  certain  favourites  and  to  certain  measures  of  do- 
mestic policy  he*was  immoveable  and  defiant.  It  was  only  when 
his  duty  brought  him  in  contact  with  the  enemy  that  these  im- 
perious traits  of  character  disappeared,  and  were  replaced  by 
halting  timidity  and  weak  hesitation. 

It  was  unfortunate  that  the  Confederate  President  ever  made 
any  threats  of  retaliation,  since  he  had  not  the  resolution  to 
per* form  them.  They  had  'been  ineffectually  repeated  until  they 
had  become  the  sneer  of  .the  enemy.  But  the  most  unfortunate 
consequence  of  the  want  of  a  proper  response  to  the  cruel  assump- 
tions of  power  by  the  North  was.  the  moral  effect  it  had  upon  our 
own  people ;  for  it  implied  a  certain  guilt,  a  certain  moral  infe- 
riority in  the  South  of  which  the  enemy  had  the  right  to  take 
advantage.  It  converted  the  relations  between  us  and  our  foes 
to  those  of  the  malfactor  and  the  constable ;  it  depressed  our 


28  THE  HIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  -      • 

sense  of  right ;  and  it  gave  to  the  soldier  the  bitter  reflection 
that  his  government  cared  but  little  for  him  in  that  martyrdom 
on  the  gallows  or  captivity  in  dungeons  with  the  terrours  of 
which  the  enemy  assailed  him. 


%    VIII. 

Finally,  there  is  this  to  be  said  of  the  rival  administrations  of 
Richmond  and  Washington:  tfiat  if  in  the  former  there  were  to 
be  found  many  evidences  of  weakness,  these,  at  least,  were  not 
crimes,  while  if  in  the  latter  there  were  to  be  seen  vigour  and 
decision,  tfhey  were  associated  with  the  insolence  of  the  repro- 
bate and  the  inhumanity  of  the  savage.  If  the  history  of  the 
retaliation  policy  and  other  questions  which  we  have  traced,  ex- 
hibits imbecility  on  the  part  of  the  Confederate  authorities,  it 
has  this  compensation:  that  it  has  inseparably  connected  with  it 
a  fearful  record  of  the  inhumanity  and  crime  of  the  enemy. 

In  this  conflict,  which  as  to  governments  was  that  between  the 
weakly  good  and  the  resolutely  evil,  the  people  of  the  Confede- 
racy had  but  little  to  expect  from  their  pblitical  authorities ; 
but  it  was  precisely  the  condition  in  which  they  had  much  to 
expect  from  the  resources  of  their  own  righteous  and  aroused 
passions.  .     , 

In  connection  with  his  "p^eace"  proclamation,  the  Yankee 
President  pointed  with  an  air  of  triumph  to  the  great  resources 
of  the  North  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  There  was  an  ac- 
tual surplus  in  its  treasury.  While  the  Confederacy  had  collected 
only  one  hundred  millions  from  its  tax  and  revenue  system,  the 
receipts  of  the  Yankee  treasury  were  nine  hundred  millions. 
The  Yankee  army  was  increased.  The  Yankee  navy  now  num- 
bered nearly  six  hundred  vessels,  and  seventy-five  of  them  were 
iroji-clads  or  armoured  steamers.  The  Yankee  political  parties 
had  accommodated  their  differences  and  no  longer  embarrassed 
the  authorities  at  Washington.  "The  crisis  which  threatened 
to  divide  the  friends  of  the  Union  is  past,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 

The  'long  continued  delusion,  indulged  by  Southern  men,  of 
"a  peace  party"  in  the  North,  which  would  eventually  compel 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  29 

peace  on  the  terms  of  the  Confederacy,  is  to  be  compared  to 
'that  similar  delusion  of  Northern  politicians,  which  insistedthat 
"  a  Union  party"  existed  in  the  South,  and  that  it  was  only 
temporarily  suppressed  by  a  faction.  There  was  not  the  least 
foundation  in  fact  for  either  of  these  opinions  :  and  the  agreea- 
ble confidence  of  the  South  in  its  supposed  friends  in  the  North, 
had  been  rudely  dispelled  by  events  that  admitted  of  but  one 
construction.  The  South  had  mistaken  for  substantial  tokens  of 
public  sentiment  the  clamours  and  exaggerations  of  party  elec- 
tions.- The  Democratic  party  in  the  North,  went  into  the  fall 
elections  of  1863,  on  the  issue  of  a  general  opposition  to  the 
Lincoln  Administration;  at  the  same  time,  promising  a  vigorous 
"constitutional"  prosecution  of  the* war,  while  their  vague  allu- 
sions to  a»  impossible  peace  and  platitudes  of  fraternal  senti- 
ment were  merely  intended  to  catch  favour  in  the  South,'  and 
realty  meant  nothing.  Even  Mr.  Seymour,  of  New  York, 
managed,  white  cozening  the  South,  -to  maintain,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  cordial  understanding  with  the  authorities  at  Washing- 
ton ;  and  he  found  it  necessary  to.  conclude  one  of  his  finest 
speeches,  by  saying,  "  never  have  I  embarrassed'  the  Adminis- 
tration, and  I  nepr  will."  « 

But  even  on  its  moderate  issues,  with  reference  to  the  war, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  proposed  only  certain  constitutional 
limitations,  the  Democratic  party  in  the  North,  had  been  badly 
beat  in  the  fall  elections.  From  Minnesota  to  Maine,  the  Dem- 
ocrats were  defeated.  In  the  latter  which  was  supposed  to  be 
the  least  fanatical  of  t]ie  New  England  States,  the  Republicans 
had  carried  the  election  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  In  Ohio, 
Vallandigham  had  been  defeated.  'He  was  still  in  exile.  Voor- 
hies,  who  had  proclaimed  doctrines  somewhat  similar  to  his,  in 
a  neighbouring  State,  narrowly  escaped  being  lynched  by  the 
soldiers.'  The  elections  were  followed  hy  a  remarkable  period 
of  political  quiet  in  the^North.  Those  who  had  the  courage  to 
confront  the  administration  of  Lincoln,  had  either  been  sup- 
pressed by  the#  strong  hand  of  law  Jess  power,  or  had  supinely 
sought  safety  in  silence.  The  overthrow  of  free  government  in 
the  North  was  complete,  and  now  in  the  winter  of  1863,  the 
usurpation  at  Washington  stood  unchallenged  and  unrebuked. 


30  THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS. 

It  had  now  a  united  people,  and  unexhausted  treasury,  enlarged 
military  resources  and  a  confidence  more  insolent  than  ever. 

Richmond,  in  December  1863,  was  a  sombre  city.  An  air 
of  gloom  pervaded  the  public  offices.  In  Congress,  Mr.  Foote 
told  his  endless  story  of  official  corruption  and  imbecility,  and 
had  his  savage  jokes  on  "  the  pepper  doctor  from  North  Caro*- 
Una,"  who  governed  the  commissariat  of  the  Confederacy.  There 
were  no  social  gaieties,  although  disreputable  balls  and  gambling 
"hells"  still  amused  those  immoral  mobs,  at  all  times  inseparable 
from  a  metropolis.  In  the  streets  there  was  the  perpetual  jug- 
gle ,of  bargain  and  sale,  apparently  unconscious  of  the  war, 
simply  because  engrossed  in  individual  avarice  ;  the  clatter  of 
the  auction  sales ;  the  levity  of  the  thoroughfare.  But  there 
was  the  seriousness  of  anxiety,  if  not  the  gloom  of  despair,  in 
the  home,  in  the  private  sanctuary,'  in  the  public  office — in  every 
place  where  thoughtful  minds  contemplated  the  future,  and 
looked  beyond  the  circle  of  the  twenty-four  hours. 

,  Washington  was  gay,  in  the  meantime,  not  with  thoughtless- 
ness, but  with  exultations  over  the  prospects  of  the  war,  and 
the  promises  of  its  government.  Balls,  "diamond"' weddings, 
Presidential  levees*  social  parties,  with  splendid  arrays  of  silks 
and  jewels,  with  all  the  phantasy  of  wealth,  the  insolence  of 
licentiousness,  and  the  fashionable  commerce  of  lust,  amused  the 
hours.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  jocose  again.  He  snapped  his  fingers 
at  "the  rebellion."  He  attended  the  theatre  nightly.  This 
piece  of.  human  jacquerie  chattered  incessantly  over  the  suc- 
cess of  his  schemes.  The  Northern  newspapers  indulged  the 
almost  immediate  prospect  of  a  peace,  which  was  to  irradiate 
the  Yankee  arms,  humiliate  the  South,  and  open  the  door  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  conquerors  in  an  indiscriminate  plunder,  and 
the  lasting  vassalage  of  the  vanquished.  The  New  York  Her- 
ald declared,  that  even  if  this  event  did.  not  happen  in  the  fes- 
tivities of  the  Christmas  season  of  r63,  it  would  certainly  be 
celebrated  in  the  early  part  of  the  ensuing  year. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  Intelligent  men  of  the  South,  under- 
stood the  approaching  issues.  The  war  was  to  oe  prosecuted  by 
the  North  with  certain  important  accessions  to  its  former  advan- 
tages ;  and,  on  the  side  of  the  South,  there  was  a  demand  for  a 


THE   RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS.  31 

new  measure  of  that  devotion  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  which 
wins  success  on  unequal  .terms— and  without  which  all  expe- 
dients of  State,  airviolence  of  legislation,  and  all  commands 
of  authority  are  utterly  in  vain. 


APPENDIX. 


There  is  a  little  piece  of  official  history  whicn  may  be  properly  given  here, 
in  connection  with  certain  questions  pending  in  the  Confederate  Congress 
while  the  foregoing  pages  have  been  passing  through  the  press. 

On  the  8th  of  January,  '64,  Mr.  Dargan,  of  Alabama,  referred  in  the  Rouse 
of  Representatives  to  u  acts  of  merciless  auelty  "  on  the  part  of  the  authorities, 
with  reference  to  exemptions,  which  it  was  then  proposed,  by  a  certain  dema- 
gogical bill  in  the  House,  to  ehtrust  exclusively  and  omnipotently  to  the 
Executive.  He  illustrated  the  epithets  applied  by  an  instance  where  a  rnaa 
had  been  mercilessly  put  in  the  military  service  who  had  never  walked  and 
never  been  able  to  walk  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  any  one  day"in  his  life,  and 
all  the  efforts  made  by  Mr.  Dargan  with  the  Secretary  of  War  to  procure  his 
release  had  so  far  been  unavailing. 

Yet  it  appears,  from  a  certain  record,  that  the  same  official  >vho  had  been 
so  exacting  to  the 'cripple,  and  who  solicited  from  Congress  plenary  powers 
on  the  subject  of  exemptions,  had  given,  over  his  own  name,  a  special,  secret 
exemption,  to  a  man  who  professed  to  him  that  he  was  writing  a  history  of 
the  war;  in  which  it  was,  of  course,  expected  that  Mr.  James  Seddon  wota4d  - 
be  one  of  the  figure-heads  in  the  gallery  of  celebrities. 

This  little  piece  of  nefarious  traffic  in  an  official's  vanity  is  of  record:  eke 
it  might  be  doubted  whether,  even  in  our  Democratic  system,  a  man  occupy- 
ing Mr.  Seddon's  position  could  be  so  easily  and  shamefully  used. 

We  copy  the  extraordinary  paper  below;  omitting  the  name  of  its  benefi- 
ciary, because  it  is  not  necessary  to  history,  and  because  we  are  anxious  to 
spare  all  private  feelings  which  are  not  materially  involved  in. a  public  issive  : 

Confederate  States  of  America,      } 
War  Department, 
Richmond,  October  20,  1863;'    ) 

Mr. not  being  a  native  or  naturalized   citizen   of  the  Confederacy, 

and  moreover,  being  engaged  in  compiling  a  work  of  interest  to  our  people,  and 
advantageous  to  our  cause,  is  exempt  until  further  orders  from  conscription. 

James  A.  Seddon, 

Secretary  of  War. 

Of^this  envious  paper  two  remarks  are  to  be  made: 

*  1.  If  Mr. had  relied  for  exemption  upon   his  alienage,  (a  plea  we 

must  suppose  him  unwilling  to  admit, 'after  his  literary  exploits  for  the  Confed- 
eracy,) then  it  was  quite  unnecessary  for  the  Secretary  to  assign  "  moreover  ". 
his  literary  adventure  as  a  cause  of  exemption. 

2.  If  Mr. had  relied  for  exemption  upon  his  alienage,  it  wa3  not  for 

the  Secretary  of  W*ar,  but  for  the  consular  authority  or  the  courts  to  give  him 
the  "benefit  of  tnat  plea. 

This  record  may  appear -to  Jae  #a  small  matter  for  history.  It  is  not:  it  ifc 
one  evidence,  selected  because  it  is  indisputable,  of  the  spirit  that  is  fast  re- 
ducing the  administration  of  the  Confederate  affairs  to  schools  of  demagogue- 
is  in  and  paltry  inventions  of  personal  vanity.      + 


THE  FIRST  YEAR  OF  THE  WAR, 

By   E.   A.    POLLARD, 

Author  of  u  Black  Diamonds"  &c. 
The  Church  and  State  Rrview  of  London  says  of  the  English  reprint: 
"  Mr.  Pollard  has  certainly  given  us  one  of  the  best  works  that  has  yet  ap- 
peared upon  that  universally  interesting  topic,  the  American  war.  We  must 
be  content  merely  to  recommend  the  book  to  the  attention  of  the  student,  and 
to  proceed  to  point  out,  as  briefly  as  possible,  some  01  the  peculiarities  which 
render  this  work  so  especially  valuable  to  all  who  desire  to  reach  the  real 
facts  of  the  case.  The  neenracy  of  the  narrative  has  been  already  noticed. 
We  have  now  to  pay  our  tribute  to  a  far  more  unusual,  and  at  least  equally 
important  characteristic,  its  singularly  dispassionate  impartiality.  It  is  a 
quality  rare  indeed,  even  in  history  written  long  after  all  personal  feeling  has 
died  away;  in  the  story  of  a  conflict  actually  raging,  and  that  with  extreme 
ferocity,  it  is,  we  may  venture  to  say,  almost  unprecedented.  Throughout  the 
entire  struggle,  indeed,  nothing  has  more  raised  the  Confederate  cause  in  Eu- 
ropean eyes  than  the  contrast  afforded  by  Southern  reticence  and  selfrespect 
to  ttie  empty  and  vaporing  and  reckless  misrepresentation  of  the  North.  By 
its  bearing,  no  less  than  by  its  valor,  the  new  Republic  has  fair'y  wrung  from 
us  a  reluctant  sympathy;  and  to  this  sympathy,  now  so  universally  felt,  Mr. 
Pollard's  volume  will  powerfully  contribute." 

The  above  work  is  for  sale  by  all  Booksellers  in  the  Confederate  States,  and 
by  the  Publishers,  WEST  &  JOHNSTON,  Richmond,  Va. 


|       THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF  THE  WAR. 

By  E.   A.   POLLARD, 

Author  of  "  The  Fisst   Year/'  &c. 

The  publishers  are  able  to  gratify  the  anxious  expectations  of  the  public 
with  the  stcund  volume  of  a  work  which  has  already  attained  in  Europe  and 
elsewhere  the  reputation  of  the  history  of  the  war,  which  has1  obtained  a  com- 
pliment rarely  given  wtiters  of  the  South,  having  been  republished  in  the 
United  States  at  New  York,  and  in  England  at  London,  and  which,  besides 
these  indications  of  solid  merit,  has  won  surpassing  favor  in  the  South,  to 
judge  from  the -fact  that  twenty  editions  of  the  iirst  vol  unit*  have  already  been 
Bold  in  the  Confederacy.  • 


NOTICES. 

"This,  the  second  volume  of  Mr.  Pollar4'<  History  of  the  War,  Will  meet 
with  even  u  wider  circulation  than  the  litnt.  It  contains  remarkably  well 
written  accounts  of  the  great  battle*  which  have,  taken  place  in  the  second 
year  of  this  struggle — accounts  which  have  the  merit  of  being  compiled  from 
reliable  t-ourees,  and  the  beauty  of  a  strong  and  dashing  6tyle  in  the  writer.'' 
Richmond  Ditpatch. 

"  We  recommend  it  to  our  readers  as  supplying  in  a  compact  and  connected 
form  a  mass  of  information  drawn  from  various  sources,  some  of  which  are 
not  easy  of  access,  to  the  general  reader,  and  digested  with  the  tact  of  a  piao- 
tised  chronicler  of  the  times." — Charleston  Mercury. 

Price,  FIVE  DOLLARS.  , 

ff&jg"  On  re  '.eipt  of  the  price  we  will  mail  the  book  (post  paid)  to  any  part 
of  the  Confederate  Sjates. 

WEST   &  JOHNSTON, 

145  Main  Street,  Richmond. 

9  "* 


